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Vera Jane Cook

Where the Wildflowers Grow

Synopsis

Sexual confusion and dysfunction cause the unraveling of the perfect American family in small town Georgia in 1960.
Rose Cassidy's fantasy life is a haunting reminder that she's living a lie. So when she has the opportunity to act on those fantasies, she dives in without any thought to consequences.
Rose's husband, Ryan, has fantasies of his own, and his actions cause unimaginable pain to the very children he tries so hard to protect.
When the happiness each member of the Cassidy family seeks so desperately to find is shattered by shame, guilt, and ultimately murder, they must each face the truth that lies deep within their souls.

Author Biography

Vera Jane Cook, is the author of Dancing Backward in Paradise, 2007 winner of the Indie Excellence Award for notable new fiction and an Eric Hoffer Award for publishing excellence, also in 2007. Dancing Backward in Paradise received a 5 Star Review from ForeWord Clarion. The Story of Sassy Sweetwater, was a finalist for the ForeWord Clarion Book of the Year Award and the recipient of a five star review from ForeWord Clarion. Where the Wildflowers Grow was her third southern fiction novel and is receiving 5 star reviews from Amazon.com. She is also the author of Annabel Horton, Lost Witch of Salem, Lies a River Deep and Marybeth, Hollister & Jane.

Author Insight

A little murder, A little love

I like to look back to when I was young. It is so much more fun for me to remember the 1950s and the 1960s. Everything was hidden, especially one's sexuality but there were the cars, oh the cars with big, wide fins and cats in the back whose eyes lit up and blinked a turn. There was the music, Oh, Diana Ross, Bob Dylan and Someone Left the Cake out in the Rain. Analyzing that song was about as philosophical as we got. Lets not forget the elaborate outfits that were no where near as elegant as those of our parents. Everyone smoked and long sideburns were most appealing. I don't want to go back but the memory is wonderful. My characters are locked in that time, a product of that time. Enjoy them!

Book Excerpt

Where the Wildflowers Grow

Chapter One

Land stretched out far as the eye could see and kissed the sky out ahead as if the world were flat and precariously curved at the same time. Endlessly connected and lying low, like a patchwork quilt of blue and white, the cloud shapes hovered and languished in the early morning, low enough to capture in her hands.

Still and quiet, the wind made no sound, just tiptoed over the flowers like a dance of ghosts. Moisture was everywhere she looked, clinging to the flower petals like tears. Moisture too was on her eyelids and her belly, and her legs were slippery and stuck together like a suction cup. The whole world was alive with purple flowers; it was recklessly wide, the world, and covered in a ground of yellow and white.

She kissed the boy’s neck, salty against her tongue. His deep brown hair stuck to his flesh like wet pieces of string. A small pool of sweat sat at the tip of his nose, a glistening puddle about to fall and splatter into her eyes.

His breath was sapid, like ginger candy, and his heart pounded wildly. She had the thought that he would fly away, propelled by the beating of his heart. She met his eyes, intensely dark, yet crinkling up at the corners in an offering of fondness and of pleasure.

There were no regrets for what they’d done, what they’d been doing all summer long, ever since she’d found the condoms. He’d slipped inside her easy like, and she held the grass in her hand and pulled it up as she opened for him like a kaleidoscope turning. He was pumping her, and she was losing all sight, all knowledge. Feeling was absolute; feeling was a sovereign drug, overtaking thought. Her legs shook under him as if the blood were leaving, and her heart beat as fast as his.

“Don’t be sorry ’bout what we’ve done,” he said. “I love you.”

Their bicycles hung over each other on the grass in an embrace of metal. His was blue and hers yellow. Couldn’t tell what bell belonged to which handlebar. The seats kissed, the leather lightened by the sun, made warm.

She ran her hands down his back, so thin to her touch. His shoulders narrow, his body snug against her, their heights were the same.

He kissed her again. The shadow over his lips was not quite full enough to be called hair. He was barely old enough to shave.

She smelled the earth under her, sweet and musty. His faint body odors that might have stunk to anybody else filled her with excitement. She put her legs over him, and he grew hard against her. She bent down to where he was stiff and self-assured. She took him slowly. It was a new sensation of taste, of gratification. In the distance the flowers swayed, as the wind picked up and their misty tears began to drip and catch the daylight. They glistened with enigmatic conversation, like stars in the night sky. Her mouth played him like an instrument, and his sighs were music that landed deep, and her heart captured his satisfaction in enveloping wings.

“Will you love me forever, Pierce?” she asked as she swung his hand in hers and they walked their bikes down the path, not really wanting to get where they needed to be.

“Uh-uh,” he said. “Forever.”

It was July, and they were off from school, doing nothing during that lazy summer but finding each other’s bodies to explore, swimming by the swimming hole naked, feeling the water as it came up inside them and cleaned where they had just been wet and sticky.

“Think your daddy will mind that I came for you this early?” he asked her.

“He won’t mind,” she said.

They neared the hill that dropped down to the house she lived in. It was large and white, eminent in stature, with a horse fence that ran the length of it. Large oak trees stood tall, protective armies of alpine presence, gracing the property like obedient soldiers. Manicured grass, verdurous and well maintained, proudly sparkled with the morning’s dew like crystal glass.

She could see her father coming down off the porch with Sadie, their old setter. He looked up and saw her, and she noticed the frown gather over his eyes.

Dalton had followed his father out. Trailing him for no good reason but to trail him.

“What you doing up so early, Lily?” her father asked.

He looked quickly at Pierce, and then back to her. She watched as his frown became more pronounced. His skin looked bristly and rough, and the bones beneath it, tightly drawn.

“We wanted to see the sun rise,” she said. “It made the whole sky look like fire.”

“Bet it did.” He kept his eyes on her. “You want to help your mother with breakfast, Lil?”

Dalton shyly kicked the dirt under his feet and glanced at Pierce.

She looked at Pierce too. His T-shirt fell out over his jeans, and he’d forgotten to put his socks back on; they must still be out there in the field. He looked guilty as he glanced past her toward the hills.

“Best be getting home, Pierce,” her father said.

Pierce nodded. He met her gaze for just a moment. “Can I come by later?” he asked.

“About five,” she said. “We can take a walk before dinner.”

“Can I come?” Dalton asked, and Lily jumped in quickly.

“No, you can’t come.”

She felt her father’s movement, as if he might say something, but he didn’t. He looked away.

Pierce hopped on his bike and took off down the road. She watched him till he was out of sight. She smelled him on her clothes; she felt the sweat he’d left on her. She didn’t meet her father’s eyes as she walked past him and into the checkerboard squares of the kitchen where everything was red and yellow and scents of spice sweetly contradicted what was emanating through her pores. Pierce was inside her skin, up under her underwear, and his cologne was in her hair. Her father would know; if she got too close, her father would know she’d had the ecstasy with Pierce Monroe.